The Apocalypse Club

by McLay, Craig

  I looked around, half-expecting to see black-suited goons hiding in the stacks, talking into their cuffs. If they were out there, they were well concealed. “Uh huh. So is that your reward for selling us out? We get two months in the JD and you get to go to Cambridge? That’s how it works?”

  She capped her pen and put it down on the table. “Okay. I probably do owe you some sort of explanation for that.”

  “Some sort?” I said in disbelief. “What….I can’t even…”

  She dropped the large textbook she was reading in her case and stood up. “You’re done at nine, right? Let’s meet for coffee. I’ll text you the place.”

  And then she was gone.

  I went back to my cart, but I don’t think I shelved more than two books during the rest of my shift, both undoubtedly in the wrong sections. My mind was whirling. What in the hell was she doing here? Surely it couldn’t be coincidence. Why was she after me this time?

  No matter what it was, I was determined that I wasn’t walking into another setup. I debated even going to meet her after my shift, but my curiosity wouldn’t let me blow it off. I had to know.

  Two minutes after nine, my cell phone buzzed with the location of a coffee shop off College Street. It was a short walk and I arrived to find her sitting in a booth near the window. I dropped myself down opposite her and ordered a cappuccino, which, on their menu, was referred to as “The Little Monk”.

  “You know,” she said, “Italians don’t drink cappuccino after noon.”

  “I’m not Italian,” I said. “Why don’t they?”

  “Beats me,” she said. “It’s just one of those things that’s not done.”

  “Well, I’m doing it,” I said. I was in a punchy mood. She was looking at me with the kind of concealed amusement that indicated she knew I was in a punchy mood but didn’t care.

  The place was moderately busy with the usual students sitting mostly alone with their laptops or tablets. I had been to this place a few times before, but certainly wasn’t a regular. Most of the staff were students, too. I had heard a rumour that the chief barista was 32, had been there for 10 years and was still in the process of finishing his BA.

  “So how are you doing, Mark?” She took a sip of her latte.

  I took a nervous look around. If there was anyone in here who wasn’t a student, they were doing an excellent job of disguising themselves.

  “Just us,” she said. “No men in black suits.”

  “So you know about him, I take it.”

  “Who?”

  “Mister Black,” I said. “Least that’s what he said his name was. The lawyer who came to see Max and me after we got arrested.”

  “Actually, no,” she said.

  My coffee arrived. I tipped two packets of plain sugar into the cup and stirred. “Uh huh.”

  She sipped her drink. “There are things I can tell you and things I can’t. It’s…complicated.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “The two of you were originally supposed to take the fall for the whole thing, but they changed their minds about that,” she said. “Maybe I helped them a bit with that, I don’t know. Not that they would listen to me.”

  “Of course not. You being such a paragon of truthiness, after all.”

  “Mark –”

  “Was anything you told me true?”

  “No,” she said. “That was a cover story.”

  “I give you points for creativity. I thought they would have told you to invent something simpler.”

  “I wasn’t working for them yet. The Weather Station operation was my final test, if you will.”

  I took a large gulp of my coffee. It was hot, foamy and spiced with something. Cinnamon? Maybe. “I guess an interview with the hiring committee just wouldn’t be enough for a job like…well, whatever job it is you do.”

  “Look, Mark,” she said. “Something big is coming. I have no idea what it is, but I’m pretty sure it’s been in the works for a long time.”

  “Something big. From them. They are up to something big.”

  “Yes. It’s just a feeling I get.”

  “A feeling.”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, Violet – if that really is your name –”

  “It is.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but I’m getting a feeling that I’m being jerked around. This has been extremely pleasant, but if you’ll excuse me, I have no wish to spend another eight months in an institution being assaulted in the showers.” I started to bump my way out of the booth.

  “Relax, Simms. It’s just coffee. You’re not going to end up in jail.” She arched an eyebrow. “Unless you try something, of course.”

  I sat back down. “On you? Not unless I wanted to end up with my brains leaking out of my nose into a little puddle on the floor.”

  She snickered. “Your brains? Yes. That would be a small puddle.”

  I pretended to look insulted. “So I don’t have to worry about somebody sneaking up behind me and jabbing me with an umbrella full of ricin, then? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I like you, Simms. You make me laugh.”

  “Well, at least I’m good for something.” I glanced at her briefcase. “Are you really going to Cambridge?”

  She nodded.

  “What are you studying? That is, if you’re allowed to tell me.”

  “Just some neuroscience.”

  “Oh, is that all? Dabble in a little brain surgery here and there, do you?”

  “That would be neurology,” she said. “I’m looking at the brain from more of a…technical perspective…I suppose you could say.”

  “Yes, I’m sure I would, if I had any idea what you were talking about.”

  She looked at her watch. “I have to go.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that mind-altering super death ray device isn’t gonna build itself.”

  She smiled and picked up her briefcase. She nodded and took a half step to leave when she seemed to have an idea and stopped.

  “Look, Mark…”

  “Ye-es?”

  “I know this is weird, but you’re pretty much the only person I know in the city. I think you’re funny. I wouldn’t mind hanging out with you again.”

  I tried to process this. There’s a passage in one of Carl Sagan’s books where he talks about the human thought process as being roughly as fast as a donkey cart. It was not an unfair comparison in my case.

  “Okay,” I said blankly.

  “You don’t have to,” she said hurriedly. “I mean, nothing bad is going to happen to you if you say no.”

  “Is something bad going to happen if I say yes?”

  She laughed.

  -16-

  So Violet Haze and I started…well…I’m not sure what the word for it would be.

  It certainly wasn’t dating, not in any sense that I understood the word. Seeing each other? No. It certainly couldn’t be described as “seeing more of each other” because I didn’t actually see more of her.

  She would just appear, often without warning. The first time it happened was about a month after our conversation in the coffee bar. I got home from a Saturday afternoon shift at the video store to find her in my kitchen, chopping onions.

  “There you are, Simms!” she said as I edged into the room. I had seen the light on and thought someone had broken into my apartment (which, I guess, she had). When I peeked through the window to see what was going on, I was more than a little surprised to see that it wasn’t just a couple of teenage junkies trying to make off with my laptop and TV. I wasn’t exactly relieved when I saw who it really was, though. “Make yourself useful and chop those green peppers for me, would you?”

  “How did you get in here?” I asked. This was eerily reminiscent of the time she had managed to sneak into my bedroom.

  “If I tell you that you left the door unlocked, will that make you feel better?”

  Had I left the door unlocked? It was possible, but even if I had, it didn’t m
ake me feel better. I didn’t recognize the knife she was using to do the chopping, either. It was a large, carbon steel professional chef’s knife. I most certainly did not have one of those. I didn’t have stainless steel mixing bowls, either. Or copper saucepans.

  “Uhh…where did you get all that stuff?” I asked. When I’d thought it was a burglar, I had reached into my pocket and grabbed my keys so they protruded out from between my fingers like makeshift claws. I did not loosen my grip on them. This was not a burglar, though. Burglars did not, generally, carry things into the house.

  “Your kitchen was missing several items I needed,” she said. “You can thank me later.”

  “Sorry,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Did you text me or something to let me know you were coming? Maybe I missed it.”

  “Sorry, no,” she said, finely slicing what looked like an eggplant. “It’s not a good idea for me to broadcast my movements too widely at the moment. I hope it’s not inconvenient.”

  “No, no,” I said, relaxing my grip on my keys but not letting them go. If she decided to come at me with that knife, my apartment key wasn’t going to be of much use, but I didn’t get the impression she was going to do that. “Um…what are you making?”

  “Moussaka. It’s my favourite dish from back home.”

  It certainly did sound better than what I had been planning to make myself. I decided that I was not going to be burgled or robbed and pitched in to help.

  That was at the end of October. The next time she appeared was in the middle of January. She was waiting in front of the entrance to the subway around the corner from the library. I had been planning to go downtown to catch a movie.

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  “You don’t know where I’m going.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  I did not. I had a feeling I would lose. So we went to the movies. After that, we went to dinner at a Greek place in Yorkville she had heard good things about.

  “You’re not really a student, are you?” I said after the waiter had deposited plates of spanakopita and souvlaki.

  “Everyone’s a student, Mark,” she said, smiling.

  “How did you know I was going to the movies?”

  “You bought your ticket online.”

  “You’re tapping my phone?” I didn’t really say this like a question.

  “Relax! There are nasty people out there. I’m just trying to look out for you.”

  “This isn’t exactly fair. You probably know more about me than I do. I know almost nothing about you.”

  “True,” she said, taking a sip of wine.

  “I don’t know what you do or where you disappear to for three months at a time.”

  “I did say almost everything.”

  The next time I saw her was at the end of April. I had just completed exams and was mentally wiped out. It had been a brutal winter and the last dregs of it had only melted away a week before. I had the weekend off. I had gone to one of my favourite downtown pubs, sat at a table on the busy patio, and ordered a pint and some wings. I had just taken the first sip of my pint when she dropped into the chair opposite me. She was wearing a light cotton summer dress with a red and green flower print. Her hair was pinned back in a loose ponytail.

  “Mind if I join?”

  I shrugged and tried to play it cool. The reality of the situation was I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. After her last disappearance, I had even tried to track her down, but my amateur detecting was even less successful than my first attempt. There was no record of her anywhere. I tried replying to her old texts, but got automated replies advising the number was no longer in service. If she wasn’t sitting across from me, I would have been able to make a convincing case that she didn’t exist. I had gotten so worked up about it at one point that I had even started to doubt that she did. Maybe my brain was malfunctioning. I even called my doctor to see what the waiting list was for a CAT scan, but they wouldn’t give me one without me having to explain why I thought I might need it, so I dropped the idea.

  “So, what’s good here?” she asked after the waiter had come by to hand her a menu.

  “I would have thought you would already know the answer to that,” I said.

  She smiled. “You look exhausted.”

  “Just finished exams. But I imagine you knew that, too.”

  The waiter came by again. She ordered a plate of antojitos and a glass of chilled white wine. I took a long drag of my pint.

  “So next year is your last year,” she said. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do when you’re done?”

  I was tempted to ask for her suggestions, but decided that would be stepping from catty to downright rude. Besides, I was thrilled to see her again and didn’t want to drive her away. But at the same time, I also hated myself a little for being so excited to see her, so that was simmering away in there as well.

  “Haven’t thought about it yet,” I said. “If all else fails, there’s always the video store.”

  She laughed. The waiter arrived with her glass of wine, which she accepted with a polite nod. “Yes, I suppose there is that. I don’t think it will last long enough for you to retire on it, though.”

  There was a pause while we sat and looked at each other.

  “You look marvellous,” I said, trying to make it sound campy and not succeeding.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Truth is that I’m pretty burned out, too. I’m taking some time off.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” I said. “It must be exhausting to have to be so mysterious all the time. Where are you going? Oh wait, never mind. Just send me a random post card from somewhere and you can withhold all the details the next time I see you.”

  “Come with me.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Paris. For a week.”

  The food arrived, but I was too stunned to realize it. I opened my mouth a couple of times, but was having trouble making any sound come out.

  My mind was reeling. Paris? The one in France? Surely she was kidding. Who just up and left for Paris out of the blue with someone who was so mysterious as to qualify as a total stranger? Where was my passport? Was it still valid? Didn’t I have a shift at the video store on Wednesday? Would I be able to get Caitlin to cover it for me? What kind of cell plan extension would I need to get? Did I need to get shots?

  “Are you serious?”

  She smiled, perhaps wistfully. “No. But it’s a nice thought, isn’t it?”

  Something snapped. “Dammit, Violet, what are you doing here? You show up every few months or so and then just disappear again. I never know where you’re going or what you’re doing or even if you’ll ever come back! And now you show up and ask me if I want to go to Paris and then say ‘just kidding’? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  I would’ve gotten up and left at that point, but I hadn’t paid and didn’t have a loose twenty dollar bill I could just throw down defiantly on the table. I was aware that people at other tables were looking at us. The waiter was also looking anxiously in our direction. I didn’t care. I was well past that point.

  “You’re right, Mark,” Violet said. Was she rattled or upset? I couldn’t tell. “It’s not a great idea for us to see each other.”

  “See each other?” I said, managing to bring my voice back down close to conversation levels. “Is that your definition of what this is?”

  She leaned across the table. “Let me ask you something. After that night at the Weather Station, why didn’t you tell anybody?”

  What did this have to do with anything? “Why didn’t I tell anybody? Probably because they’d lock me up. That’s what your buddy Mister Black said they would do, anyway. Besides, who in the world would believe me? I was there and I’m starting to wonder if I still believe it myself.”

  She slumped back in her chair. “Exactly. You don’t know much, but it’s still more than just about everybody else. I don’t have a lot of friends, Mark. There aren’t hundreds of
people out there I can just sit down and talk to without getting bombarded with questions about what I do or where. I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you’d like me to do.”

  She reached up and wiped away tears. Damn. There was no way I was going to be able to stand up to that.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, impulsively reaching across the table and grabbing her wrist to keep her from getting up. “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just this whole thing is very…weird.”

  “You have no idea how weird it is.”

  “Try me. I work in a video store. You wanna know which city councillor has rented a documentary about sex with zoo animals seven times? I can tell you. Seems like a nice woman. What she does with her evenings in Scarborough is entirely her business.”

  “Okay, yes. That is weird. I mean a different weird.”

  “Which, of course, you can’t possibly discuss.”

  She looked around. “Not here, I can’t. Can we go back to your place?”

  -17-

  “They found me when I was eight,” she says, putting her wine glass on the wooden arm of my cheap but durable Ikea couch. “I solved one of their little online puzzles.”

  “Puzzles?” I am sitting in a matching arm chair, the bolts of which are in serious need of tightening. I am prevented from doing this by the fact that I have lost the hex key that fits, although I do have approximately 22 others that do not.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Little cryptography exercises they sort of leave hiding in plain sight. I guess I solved one that nobody else had ever cracked before, so that caught their interest.”

  “And by they you mean…”

  “GDI.”

  “Maybe you can explain this to me. If they’re this ultra-secret mega ultra-huge corporation that owns practically everything, why do they feel it necessary to have both the words Global and International in their name?”

  She grinned. “That I don’t know.”

  “I mean, it sounds a little…what’s the word? Redundant. If you’re global, doesn’t it kind of go without saying that you’re also international?”